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Livestream: Watch Elon Musk at IAC2017 as he reveals Mars plan
Here’s how you can watch a livestream of Elon Musk at IAC2017
After many months of teasers from Elon Musk and SpaceX, Musk is about to give a presentation on SpaceX’s updated Big Falcon Rocket, which is expected to one day bring humans to Mars and potentially even support a city-sized colony on the planet.
Musk’s 2016 presentation on the Interplanetary Transport System captured the imaginations of many people, kindling the sort of excitement he has always hoped to inspire. Sitting in the audience during his Guadalajara, Mexico talk, his esoteric desire to make people excited to get out of bed in the morning resonated with me.
Updated: Elon Musk teases SpaceX-built cities on the Moon and Mars
Nevertheless, we now find ourselves almost exactly one year after his 2016 talk, and many things are believed to have changed with both SpaceX’s interplanetary colonization strategy and the hardware the company expects to develop to accomplish that colonization. Musk has said that tonight’s presentation will focus on the how of SpaceX’s Mars colonization efforts, entailing a somewhat smaller booster and spaceship with “major improvements”, as well as some “unexpected applications” for the vehicle.
Major improvements & some unexpected applications to be unveiled on Friday at @IAC2017 in Australia
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 25, 2017
What exactly those unexpected applications might be is fittingly unclear, if they are indeed less than obvious. More obvious applications for a fully-reusable heavy launch vehicle include
- More affordable access to orbit
- Mass launches of satellite constellations
- Off-the-shelf access to the surface of the Moon
- Space tourism in Earth orbit
- Cheaper and simpler space stations in a single launch
- Direct and rapid access to the Outer Solar System for more complex planetary exploration missions
These are just a handful of the potential uses and benefits that could be derived from a fully-reusable heavy launch vehicle like the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR). Unexpected or not, the near-Earth utility of a theoretical BFR is undeniable.
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- SpaceX’s massive carbon fiber liquid oxygen tank seen testing in Northern Washington. BFR’s tankage will be 25% narrower, and thus easier to manufacture. (SpaceX)
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- SpaceX’s Raptor engine seen conducting a live fire test last year. (SpaceX)
Aside from additional information on those unexpected applications, we can expect several exciting tidbits. Musk has teased new and improved videos of their Raptor rocket engine conducting live-fire tests, and we also have reason to believe that his talk will be accompanied by an equally slick and thrilling collection of renders of the updated BFR in action. Mirroring last year’s rather shocking unveiling of physical hardware development in the form of Raptor’s first test fire and a massive carbon fiber propellant tank, I personally expect to see confirmation of still more tangible hardware development.
A growing amount of recent news pointing to Boca Chica, Texas as the first launch site for SpaceX’s massive new rocket may also lead to an official statement from Musk himself either confirming or denying this, maybe accompanied by a tentative schedule for pad development. Regardless of what is revealed, tonight’s presentation is bound to be yet another exceptional opportunity to hear Musk wax poetic about SpaceX’s desire to make humanity a multiplanetary species.
We’ve embedded a livestream of Elon Musk’s upcoming presentation SpaceX IAC2017 presentation scheduled to begin at the following times:
- Friday at 2 p.m. Australian Central Standard Time
- 12:30 p.m. China Standard Time
- 6:30 a.m. Central European Standard Time
- 5:30 a.m. British Summer Time
- 12:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time
- Thursday at 9:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
Tesla’s long-standing saga regarding its door handles and a manual release has entered its latest chapter, and as a result, a big change is coming.
On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) denied Tesla’s petition that was seeking a defect investigation into roughly 180,000 Model 3 vehicles for an issue involving the emergency mechanical door release.
🚨 The NHTSA denied a petition from Tesla that would have thrown out concerns regarding its door handles.
NHTSA said Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect warranting an investigation. The agency said a rulemaking process would be a better strategy. pic.twitter.com/j6PzUBM1mT
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 24, 2026
NHTSA said that Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect in the door handles or their emergency releases. Instead, the agency determined that it would rather solve the issue of the lack of labeling or location of emergency mechanical door releases and the federal safety rules that govern them.
Essentially, the NHTSA wants to create and enforce rules that would require automakers to make emergency door latch releases more clearly labeled in a car. Despite a Tesla having manual door releases on all four passenger doors, many people do not know they exist or how they work.
Tesla addresses door handle complaints with simple engineering fix
In recent times, Tesla has faced some criticism involving its door handles, specifically because some occupants have reported that they are unable to exit their vehicles after losing power. The door handles on a Tesla are electronically operated, but in the event that the 12V battery dies, there is a manual release that can be used.
The NHTSA only identified a single complaint involving the mechanical door releases: a 2022 Model 3 owner said the release was concealed and unlabeled after the vehicle lost power after a front-end collision. It has also already started to create a separate rulemaking process to make emergency door-egress systems more obvious.
It should be noted that all Teslas have mechanical emergency door releases, but they are placed in various locations as the vehicles have aged and been redesigned from year to year. Refer to the safety manual for your vehicle if you have any confusion about where the emergency releases are and how they work.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
Tesla short sellers win big after shares fall after earnings
